Forecast and summer reading: Obama a demagogue, Israel rising, Meredith Whitney was right, King George

{mosads}Tamar has a very popular English-language program on Israel National Radio which can be streamed online under her name. I was privileged to be interviewed by Tamar in June to speak about the rising generation in Israel, featuring Moshe Feiglin, Naftali Bennett and Ayelet Shaked. Tamar might be considered today in Israel to be what Oprah was at one time so long ago to America: the representative voice of the times rising.

But Tamar’s voice is wise, thoughtful and Jewish. I would not even call it conservative. Jewish ancient truths and traditional values are only today considered “conservative” since Andrew Weiner has become the benchmark and standard of liberalism. The scale broke long ago. To peer into Israel’s future, tune into The Tamar Yonah Show.

Meredith Whitney was right. Several years ago Meredith Whitney, a Wall Street Journal reporter, wrote that America’s cities were in dire straits. It seemed obvious to anyone who looked. She made a big splash in the mainstream media, then was suddenly sent into exile.

This week Detroit defaulted and Whitney suddenly reappeared on the op-ed pages of most every prominent economic journal. From her Financial Times piece: “Detroit aftershocks will be staggering.”

The recession will leave America regionalized, with welfare-seeking states in the “old” Eastern industrial sectors and abandoned urban regions, while the agriculture states in the center rise to advancing wealth.This is the definitive paradigm of the century ahead. Whitney sees beyond the wreckage in her new book, Fate of the States: The New Geography of American Prosperity.

The return of the king. I had the opportunity to talk to a very orthodox Jewish psychologist from Jerusalem with a foot-long beard recently who made the case that prophecy does not only come from the Bible but can be seen as “hidden text” in gnostic pop culture such as Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings.

And the third book in the series, The Return of the Kinghad positive psychic resonance for today. In his terms, life under a benign Queen like Elizabeth is a passive passing, like being raised by a rich and pleasant auntie: Herman’s Hermits and Bill Clinton are sure to materialize, Bob Geldof and Bono will dictate foreign policy to heads of state, gay marriage will be legalized, and in the final descent, Andrew Weiner. With a king you get Lord Nelson and Ernest Shackleton. Summer reading: Ivanhoeby Sir Walter Scott.